Nokia 3230 is basically the first smartphone, which could be considered a middle class one. Nevertheless, it has pretty rich functional equipment: it supports EDGE, Bluetooth, Push to talk and has megapixel camera and radio. As usually, we have tested the phone thoroughly and prepared a detailed review for you.

Size 109 x 49 x 19 mm
Weight 110 gm

The 3230 isn't a great looker, except in a boxy retro kind of way, but it's got a sensible keypad and a nice-sized screen. The screen is standard spec for a Nokia smartphone, and feature-wise it's comparable with most of Nokia's series 60 phones such as the 6670 or 7610. There are a couple of extras such as the Visual Radio, Push to Talk and Tunes Studio (polyphonic ringtone composer).

the usage of non-replaceable covers comes to suggest that the construction should be good; and it is. The phone is really very compact and solid. During the whole testing period its covers did not utter a single creak when normally used. The very only hint of a creaky sound came out when I was trying to remove the back cover by forcing it. The camera lens has been very well allocated as well. The lens is embedded in the top part of the back cover, so it does not stick out from the phone's surface by even a millimeter.

TFT 65K colors , Size: 176 x 208 pixels, 35 x 41 mm

The screen is the most intriguing point of the model. The first shipped phones have a rather dull screen, being much inferior to the Nokia 7610, at the same time, the low characteristics were concerned with the screen quality but not the software. There were only a few devices that also distinguished a careless assembly and element disposition. The main shipments had no troubles with the screen; the picture was bright and vivid and won over the Nokia 7610/6670 with the same settings. The manufacturer claims 65K TFT with the resolution of 176x208 pixels (35x41 mm). Comparing the screen with the Nokia 6681 we see they are completely identical both in color palette and image details. The company tells about supporting 262K in the elder model. It's clear that the color saturation doesn't bring any quality improvement of the screen of such resolution and a slight suspension of a complete physical identity of the Nokia 3230 and Nokia 6681's screens appears. Principally, everything rests against the marketing when a user is offered clear improvements but they are not shown. The screen is not bad for a smartphone, though naturally looses to Sharp and Samsung screens with comparable characteristics.

1.3 megapixel camera, with an effective resolution of 1.23 megapixels (1280 x 960 pixels)
Video camera (176 x 144 pixels) with up to 1 hour of recording
Movie Director software for video editing

The 3230 comes with a Kodak Mobile Service which enables you to upload images to the Kodak Web site and then have prints delivered to your address. You can also print the pictures using Bluetooth wireless technology at any Kodak Kiosk at selected Nokia retail locations. Obviously these prints have to be paid for!

The battery BL-5B is of the Li-Ion type and has a capacity of 760 mAh. On its surface you can see the reserved hologram of Nokia Company, which is to prove the device originality. If you cannot see it, the battery in front of you is simply not an original Nokia one. According to the official statements given by the manufacturer the battery is to support up to 4 hours of continuous calls and up to 150 hours stand-by.

It would be a pity not to take a more detailed look at the radio. In the menu it is placed under Visual Radio. Even though it is possible to listen to the radio by using the loud speaker, the latter won't work unless the earphones are plugged in. The tuning process is driven either automatically according to the signal intensity, or manually, by dialing the frequency of the desired station. The automatic tuning will select a station provided the signal is really intense. If the broadcast gets disturbed even a bit, the phone skips the station and goes on searching.

If you know the name of the station, but you cannot remember its frequency, you can use the list with radio stations, which is easily accessible directly from the application. It is possible to save the station into the list in order to avoid a repeated search once the phone has been restarted. The list contains twenty vacancies altogether. As for the incoming calls, they are easily recognizable for the radio sound deadens and the ring melody starts running through the headset. The same process is initiated when a message has come.

The Visual Radio technology enables for receiving not only a sound signal, but also a data flow with various details on the music pieces and their content. The first radio station to work with Nokia Visual Radio was launched in Finland just days ago.

The device provides 6MB of memory that is the minimal capacity among all similar products. The memory card present lives down the shortcoming.

Retreating to take a closer look at the connectivity capabilities of the 3230, we find a relatively comprehensive offering with tri-band GSM 900/1800/1900 MHz as well as GPRS and EDGE on the slate. Data transfer performance is excellent, as we've come to excpect from Nokia, as is signal reception and voice quality, with the loudspeaker also performing admirably.

For short-range connectivity, the 3230 offers up a good selection of Bluetooth profiles, as well as Nokia's proprietary Pop-Port for USB connectivity with PCs. Memory expansion, as has already been mentioned, is courtesy of an RS-MMC card slot hidden beneath the battery lid; a practice we've already made our opinion of strikingly clear. Still, we'll repeat it for your reading pleasure: for the love of God (and the sake of our collective sanity), get the damn thing out of there.

On the software side of things, the Nokia 3230 is rather similar to most recent smartphones from Nokia but differs on a few points. First and foremostly, it includes the same PIM software, utility set and broad feature and standard support as found in recent peers. This includes presence, positioning, chat and push-to-talk, as well as a handy settings wizard for automatically configuring network settings. Also, messaging support is as broad as ever with SMS, MMS and POP3/IMAP4/SMTP e-mail on the slate.

Imaging functionality is also comprehensively present, with the 3230 capable of shooting video clips up to one hour long combined with the ability to edit images and video on-device as well as upload to online services and print the latter kind via Bluetooth. What gives the 3230 away as a consumer-targeted smartphone, however, is the inclusion of four games of which two in particular are of high quality and provide quick thrills whilst waiting in line at the super.

Unfortunately, however, our usual complaint concerning the synchronization capabilities of Nokia smartphones is also very much present. Briefly summarized, a total lack of groupware support; no adaptation of IMAP4 protocol support (as found in the Nokia 6680) to render the 3230 more Exchange friendly; and ghastly slow and limited support for PC synchronization make for an apalling experience. In the name of fairness, though, the 3230 isn't targeted at business users, to which the complete lack of Microsoft Office and Adobe Acrobat file format viewers bears witness.